On Socrates - Overrated Philosopher
470 BC - 399 BC
Geoffrey Hamilton
September 12, 2003
The best thing to be said about Socrates is that he understood philosophy to
be an art and that talking in a conversation can bring out some interesting points.
At the same time his belief that knowledge could be innate was also close to
the mark but not as he envisioned it as the learning taken from one's own infinite past lives - an idea probably from India via Pythagoras.
Even these small unoriginal points in his favour were contaminated beyond
repair by his
insistence that what is brought out in conversation from the depths of some
innate storehouse
is somehow the absolute truth and it comes from god.
Some knowledge is genetically innate as a starter for life, but it does not make it 'True' knowledge in any sense.
Of course his truth came only through his inspired way of holding
a discussion,
the newly reinvented 'dialectic' of Socrates.
He had no idea that discussions are games that bring out unlooked for
insights and that's all
they can do.
His propagandists Plato and Xenophon contrived
reenactments of his method only to show how banal and retarded his
straw opponents were. He often
contradicts himself and his methods so much so it become a mess.
What's more appalling is that he
uses sarcasm like a school boy and his appologists whitewash it
into some gift to humanity.
He can be blamed for the deterioration of science and the further
hijacking of philosophy
by religious fanatics in rationalist clothing like Seneca.
He may have studied natural science and
sophism in his younger days, but by his own admission he didn't
understand it (no sarcasm from him here).
He said repeatedly that natural science should only be studied
for obvious practical
applications and gives the example that you should know
just enough geometry to lay out your land for farming.
Overall, Socrates said if he
personally could not see
an obvious use for something he called any investigation of it foolish.
If he couldn't imagine an answer being discovered to a question
then it was a waste of time to
investigate it. What is worse is that his whole approach is based
on a wish to avoid failure.
If Socrates had been fully listened to for the last few hundred
years there would be
no computers, space travel, or just about anything we use today
simply because the 'master'
could not imagine a use for studies which accidentally, but insightfully,
led to all our very practical devices today.
Except for talking too much, Socrates shows every sign of being
intellectually lazy. He accepted most conventions set
out by his city of Athens as though they too were made by god
- though he knew they were not.
And while he professed that he
must do the government's bidding, right or wrong, he proudly
disobeyed two vastly different goverments
because he felt superior to their judgments. His two refusals
show every sign of being based
on egotism and a failure to understand that his personal beliefs
are not the state's nor are they god's.
He egotism extended as far as to use his protege to contrive
a proclamation that
he was the wisest man in Greece, then he advertised this scam
shamlessly for
the remainder of his life with the most back-handed modesty -
he claimed to
be wisest among idiots. But his laziest method was to suppose
that whatever
pops into his head was true and whatever
gut feeling he got about other people's ideas was proof
enough
that these ideas were absolutely false.
Rather than open his senses to the world Socrates prefered to listen to a
little voice inside his head -- most likely the diety he was later
accused of inventing.
(This is enough to be concerned for his sanity.)
The god he really invented was the christian one - as the church
saw clearly - Socrates was a theologian and so the church stole most of his position.
Christians like Erasmus called him St. Socrates perhaps unaware that it was he that gave rise to
his christian modes.
Overall, what he came up with would later be called medieval
thought - it was so crushing in it's
political and intellectual
implications it could be the one single
reason why much of science was crippled for two thousand years.
GRH
Socrates Overview
"He did not discourse about the nature of the physical universe.... ...he pointed out the
foolishness of those who concerned themselves with such questions....
He expressed surprise that it was
not obvious to them that human minds cannot discover these secrets, inasmuch
as those who claim most confidently to pronounce upon them do
not hold the same theories, but disagree
with one another like lunatics."
Xenophon, Memoirs of Socrates 380 (approx) BC
"(Socrates)'...our foreheads have been fringed with eyebrows to prevent damage even
from the sweat of the head. ...Are you in real doubt whether such provident arrangements
are the result of chance or of design? ...And the implanting of the instincts to procreate, and
the implanting in the female parent of the instinct to rear her young, and in the young
so reared an intense desire to live and an intense fear of death' "
Xenophon, Memoirs of Socrates 1.4.7, 380 (approx) BC
" (Socrates telling a story) 'Nothing that is really good and admirable
is granted by the gods to men without some effort
and application."
Xenophon, Memoirs of Socrates 2.1.25, 380 (approx) BC
"(Socrates) '...whom can we find that enjoy greater benefits than children receive
from their parents? Their parents have brought them into existence from non-existence...' "
Xenophon, Memoirs of Socrates 2.2.3, 380 (approx) BC
" (Socrates)'...a man must have a great many other qualities, natural and acquired.'"
Xenophon, Memoirs of Socrates 3.1.8, 380 (approx) BC
" (Socrates) 'You know how athletes sometimes, when they have enjoyed unchallenged
superiority, through sheer lack of enterprise, become no match for their opponents?' "
Xenophon, Memoirs of Socrates 3.5.14, 380 (approx) BC
" (Socrates) '...a shield which is fine for defence is totally unlike a spear which is fine
for throwing hard and fast. ...people are called "fine" and "good" on the same grounds
and with same ends in view...' "
Xenophon, Memoirs of Socrates 3.8.1, 380 (approx) BC
" (Socrates) '...every natural disposition can be developed...."
Xenophon, Memoirs of Socrates 3.9.1, 380 (approx) BC
" (Socrates) '...you are using the term "well proportioned" not absolutely, but in
relation to the wearer...."
Xenophon, Memoirs of Socrates 3.10.12, 380 (approx) BC
" (Socrates) '...even the most delightful dishes seem disagreeable if they are served
before the appetite is ready, and if one is satiated, they actually cause disgust; but
even inferior food seems quite attractive if it is served after hunger has been aroused,' "
Xenophon, Memoirs of Socrates 3.11.12, 380 (approx) BC
" (Socrates) '...Even the act of thinking, which is supposed to require least
assistance from the body, everyone knows that serious mistakes often happen through
physical ill-health.' "
Xenophon, Memoirs of Socrates 3.12.6, 380 (approx) BC
"(Socrates regarding "Know thyself") 'Those who do not
know themselves and are totally deceived about their own
abilities....don't know what they want or what they are doing or what means they are using;
and, through making gross mistakes about all these, they miss the good things
and get into trouble.' "
Xenophon, Memoirs of Socrates 4.2.29, 380 (approx) BC
" (Socrates) 'Then, if these things are sometimes beneficial and sometimes harmful, are
they any more good than bad?'
(Euthydemus)'Not a bit, it seems, according to your argument.' "
Xenophon, Memoirs of Socrates 4.2.33, 380 (approx) BC
"(Socrates) never stopped investigating...the meaning of every single term."
Xenophon, Memoirs of Socrates 4.6.1, 380 (approx) BC
"...he used to proceed by such stages as were generally agreed, because he thought
that this was the infallible method of argument. ...He used to say that Homer
himself attributed to Odysseus the quality of being an infallible speaker, because he could base his
arguments on the accepted beliefs of his hearers.
Xenophon, Memoirs of Socrates 4.6.15, 380 (approx) BC
"In general, he dissuaded them from concerning themselves with the way in which
God regulates the various heavenly bodies, he thought that these facts were not discoverable
by human beings. ....he told his companions to guard against purposeless research; and he
himself helped them in their investigations and explanations only so far as was useful."
Xenophon, Memoirs of Socrates 4.7.8, 380 (approx) BC
"...the boy performed a dance, and Socrates said, 'Did you see how, beautiful as the boy
is, he nevertheless looks even more beautiful in the figures of the dance than when
he is keeping still?'"
Xenophon, The Dinner Party, 2.14 380 (approx) BC
"(Socrates) '...the bloom of youth, as we know, quickly passes its prime, and when this fails,
affection must fade along with it; but so long as the mind is progressing towards
greater wisdom the more lovable it becomes. Then again, involvement with physical
beauty entails a sort of satiety, so that one is bound to lose interest in a
favourite in just the same way as repletion makes one lose interest in food; but
affection for the mind, being pure, is less liable to satiety.' "
Xenophon, The Dinner Party, 8.13 380 (approx) BC
"(Socrates) ' ...enemies too are assets for someone who is capable of deriving benefit from them.' "
Xenophon, The Estate-Manager, 1.14 380 (approx) BC
"(Socrates) '...everyone is naturally inclined to love
the things which they think will profit them' "
Xenophon, The Estate-Manager, 20.30, 380 (approx) BC
"(Socrates) '...everyone has equal knowledge...'"
Xenophon, The Estate-Manager, 20.1 380 (approx) BC
"(Socrates) '...the soul is immortal and often born, having seen what is on earth and what is
in the house of Hades, and everything, there is nothing it has not learnt;
so there is no wonder it can remember about virtue and other things, because it knew
about these before. For since all nature is akin, and the soul has learnt everything
, here is nothing to hinder a man, remembering one thing only - which men call
learning - from himself finding out all else...for seeking and learning is all
remembrance.' "
Plato, Meno, 81B, 380 (approx) BC
"(Socrates) '...both in the time when he is a man and when he isn't there are to be
true opinions in him, which are awakened by questioning and become knowledge....
the truth of things is always in our soul....'"
Plato, Meno, 86B, 380 (approx) BC
" Socrates: '...if we believe that we must try to find
out what is not known, we should be better and braver and less idle than if we believed
that what we do not know it is impossible to find out and that we need not even try.'
"Socrates: 'Since we agree that we must try to find out about
what we do not know....'"
Plato, Meno, 86E, 380 (approx) BC
" Socrates: 'Since we don't know what it is or what it is like, let us make
our hypothesis or ground to stand on, and then consider whether it can be taught or not.'"
Plato, Meno, 87B, 380 (approx) BC
" Socrates: '...good men must be useful'"
Plato, Meno, 97A, 380 (approx) BC
" Socrates: '...since neither knowledge nor true opinion comes to mankind by nature
, being acquired...'"
Plato, Meno, 98D, 380 (approx) BC
" Socrates: '...virtue is seen as coming neither by nature nor by teaching; but by divine
allotment incomprehensibly to those to whom it comes.'"
Plato, Meno, 98D, 380 (approx) BC
" Socrates: '...something divine and spiritual comes to me.... This has been about
me since my boyhood, a voice, which when it comes always turns me away from doing
something I am intending to do, but never urges me on.'"
Plato, Apology, 32A, 380 (approx) BC
" Socrates: '...so long as we have the body with us in our enquiry, and our soul is mixed
up with so great an evil, we shall never attain sufficiently what we desire, and that,
we say, is the truth. ...either knowledge is possible nowhere, or only after death....'"
Plato, Phaedo, 67A, 380 (approx) BC
" Socrates: '...we got it before we were born.... ...I mean everything which we seal
with the name "that which is", the essence."
Plato, Phaedo, 67A, 380 (approx) BC
